n. (biology) the field of science concerned with processes of communication and control (especially the comparison of these processes in biological and artificial systems)

Etymologies

From Greek kubernētēs, governor, from kubernān, to govern.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Ancient Greek κυβερνητικός (kubernētikos, "good at steering, good pilot"), from κυβερνάω (kubernaō, "I steer, drive, guide, act as a pilot"), possibly based on 1830s French cybernétique "the art of governing." The term was coined in 1948 by U.S. mathematician Norbert Wiener. (Wiktionary)

Examples

The term cybernetics was coined by Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician of the twentieth century.

It was the century of Clerk Maxwell, yes-I'm thinking mainly of his work on what we call cybernetics-and Babbage and Peirce and Ricardo and Clausewitz and a slew of other thinkers whom we're stifi living off of.

It was the century of Clerk Maxwell, yes -- I’m thinking mainly of his work on what we call cybernetics -- and Babbage and Peirce and Ricardo and Clausewitz and a slew of other thinkers whom we’re still living off of.

The possibility for this sort of analysis was recognized early and practical applications were developed more or less independently by modelers in economics, ecology, industrial management, and what was then called cybernetics [53].

The characteristic feature of the new view of unity was the idea of cross-fertilization, instantiated in the creation of war-boosted inter-disciplines such as cybernetics, computation, electro-acoustics, psycho-acoustics, neutronics, game theory, and biophysics.

My favorite anecdotes in the book concern another old hero of mine, Norbert Wiener, who coined the term "cybernetics" and whose decidedly non-commercial The Human Use of Human Beings was published in paperback by Jason Epstein as an Anchor book.

He created the term by combining "cybernetics," the science of replacing human functions with computerized ones, and "punk," the raucous music and nihilistic sensibility that became a youth culture in the 1970s and '80s.